I’ve never been one to buy my sketchbooks. It’s always been more fun to make them out of stuff that I find or things that have been laying around the apartment. They don’t look like everyone else’s and they’re almost always dirt cheap. I often give them as a way to say, “thank you” and also just because I feel like it.

I’ll be adding more as time goes along, but for now, here’s a few of my latest and greatest:

Plastic and Nuts and Bolts

I don’t know what this plastic stuff is, but it comes on a giant roll at the discount store down the street and they sell it by the yard. The paper inside is a mixture of school newsprint, torn down yellow kraft envelopes, and brown kraft paper. The nuts, bolts, and washers came from Tony’s Hardware.

Street Boards

I found this piece of wood in the middle of the street one day. It was already painted red. I brought it home, washed it off, cut in half to make the front and back covers. I sanded the corners and rough edges and part of the top and bottom surfaces. The spine is a piece of cardboard from an amazon.com box. The covers and spine are held together with clear duct tape, black gym floor tape, and masking tape. The papers used inside are: olive green stock that i got a long time ago, school newsprint, and that cheap manila drawing paper you can grab at any Office Max in the country.

Recycled Boxes

The little stores around Brooklyn are always tying up and throwing out stacks and stacks of flattened boxes. Whenever I see a print that I like, I destroy their neat stack, and take the one I want home with me. Cardboard is incredibly lightweight and durable, which ends up being perfect for the city. I added my own stencils to this one and stitched up the sides with different colors of thread. First you have to make little slits down the side with a box cutter. Once that’s done, you weave thread in and out of the slits. When you’re finished threading, you then paint on a few generous coats of glue, and let it dry overnight. It’s one of the cheapest books you’ll ever make.